The missing mana spheres.

Here are my ideas of the missing three mana spheres: Creation, Force, and Dimensions.

Creation:
-Passive: +10% work rate, increases by only 5% each subsequent mana
-Creation I: +1 food, gold, and production in city. Cannot be casting Creation II at the same time.
-Creation II: Free specialist in city. Cannot be casting Creation I at the same time.
Both function like Inspire or Hope: one allowed in city, and it disappears when caster leaves.
-Creation III: Free GP of your choice. Usable only once!

Force:
-Force I: Gives Force promotion to all siege units in the stack: +10 collateral damage
-Force II: Force Field: +10% tile defense. This can stack to a maximum of 15% and can be bombarded.
-Force III: Summons a sphere of force with strength 5 and force affinity 1 that causes collateral damage. Movement 1.

Dimension:
Dimension I: Teleport: Caster can teleport to legal tile. Range 2. Must wait two turns after use.
Dimension II: Summons an Inter-dimensional Being: Strength 4.5, dimension affinity .5, movement 1, dimension movement affinity 1 (gets +1 movement for each dimension mana you control).
Dimension III: Rift: Deals units about 30% damage to a maximum of 60% and adds the pain promotion to units. (Pain: -1 movement, -1 strength, removable by Priest's Cure Disease.) Range 1.

So what do all of you think? Is there someone who would want to mod this into the game?

Thematically, a boost to the work rate would be most fitting for the Earth sphere, which is about hard honest labor and the benefits thereof. Allowing bonuses to have the passive benefit of boosting the work rate would require SDK changes, and I don't think it would be worth the effort.

A boost to the great person rate would be more appropriate for the Creation mana, and would be very easy to implement as it is already used for Spirit mana.

I am not a fan of any spells than can only be cast once.

The real meaning of force is Balance. Nothing you suggested for this sphere seems to fit.



Allowing units with dimensional I to select the destination of their teleportation can be tricky.

The game does not allow fractional strength, fractional affinity, or movement affinity.



I prefer the way that I already have implemented the spheres in my modmod (which I may get around to releasing soon).
Creation provides a passive benefit for both GPP and research.

Creation 1: Muse: creates the Muse building, which provides 4 culture and a specialist slot for each type of specialist
Creation 2: Fertility: creates the Fertility building, which provides 10 food, 2 health, and 1 area health
Creation 3: Abundance: creates the Abundance building, which eliminates all unhealthiness.

In the lore it is said that Creation may well be the most powerful sphere, but it is unpredictable. Amathoan chooses whom he blesses seemingly at random. In older version I made the creation spells have a high chance of miscasting, but that got to be annoying. Now I have it set up so that you cannot build a creation node on raw mana, but must find a source of creation mana on which to build. (Note that I made it so that all 21 spheres' mana types appear on the map and are more common than raw mana.)


Force mana has the opposite effect on diplomacy as death or entropy mana. Most civs like you better for using it, although the Infernal and Sheaim leaders will like you less.

Force 1: Temperance: provides the Temperance promotion, which grants 35% resistance for both holy and unholy damage.
Force 2: Resist Magic: Provides the Resist Magic promotion, which can no longer be purchased through xp.
Force 3: Summon Runewyn: summons a magic immune angel of Dagda, which targets arcane units in stacks of stronger units and remove all the mana and channeling promotions from units it attacks even if it loses.

Dimensional provides the diplomatic malus like death and entropy and causes 1 unhappiness per source controlled. Each level promotion allows summoners to keep 1/4th of its summons xp, and provides the summons with a combat promotion.

Dimensional 1: Escape: teleports the caster to its owners capital. (This is the same spell as Kael had implemented as dimensional 1 in older versions of the mod, and since them moved to the Chanter unit. The only change I made was to prevent it from being used when the unit's owner does not have a capital or is already there.)
Dimensional 2: Unsummon: destroys your rivals limited duration summons.
Dimensional 3: Summon Rift: summons a unit that works like an ICBM in vanilla civ. This can attack any tile on the map, unless it is too close to units or territory controlled by a player with whom its owner is not at war. A portal is created between the caster's tile and the tile that the rift attacks, allowing units to move freely directly from either of these to the other.
Dimensional 3: Rift Gate: creates a duplicate of the Obsidian Gate building in the city, allowing units to be airdropped to other cities. The number of permitted airdrops stacks, so it is still useful in cities that already have obsidian gates. (The AI does not understand how to use Summon Rift, but it uses Rift Gate just fine.)

MagisterCultuum said:

The game does not allow fractional strength, fractional affinity, or movement affinity.

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Actually, Rise from Erebus allows all those things. Added a far more in depth affinity system.

List of available tags:


Affinities can be granted from multiple bonuses, empire-wide population levels, capital population, and number of vassals; All tags (other than AffinityPromotions) are floats, so fractional affinity is quite possible.

MagisterCultuum said:

I prefer the way that I already have implemented the spheres in my modmod (which I may get around to releasing soon).

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"Soon". With your track record, I'll be checking back whenever I finish University (for context, I haven't started yet.)

MagisterCultuum said:

Force 3: Summon Runewyn: summons a magic immune angel of Dagda, which targets arcane units in stacks of stronger units and remove all the mana and channeling promotions from units it attacks even if it loses.

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Eesh. I think I just heard Dain throwing up. Repeatedly. For an hour. I don't blame him.

And four dimensional nodes really sounds like something I would have liked to have in that game where I managed to acquire an 86 xp spectre. Blech.

Please keep doing things MC, at this point I'm fairly sure you're brain is going to be marked on maps as a local tourist attraction.

By "soon," I mean that I have uploaded an attachment (in the .7z format, as a .zip archive was just above the forum's size limit on uploads and I don't want to figure out how to make an installer), and may be only a couple minutes away from submitting a new thread from which you can access it.

Mages like Dain should fear Dagda's Runewyns if they dare to threaten the balance of Erebus. Note that these angels are entirely canonical, and can be found in the bestiary.

You'd actually need more than 4 dimensional mana; there are more sources of mana in my version so I raised the requirements for free promotions.

A boost to the great person rate would be more appropriate for the Creation mana, and would be very easy to implement as it is already used for Spirit mana.

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I had thought of a passive GP boost for Creation mana, but I wanted to do something original. My thinking was creating an improvement.

And I know Force is really all about balance, but then again, Ceridwen is the goddess of magic, pain, and unhealthy relations. Yet she has the power of dimensions.

Fertility and Abundance seem quite similar, and all of them seem a bit over powered, even if they're supposed to be the strongest mana.

I like your Dimension spells, but I can't think of a use for Escape. And that thing about summoners gaining summons xp seems way to powerful, even a bit unfair, despite the token unhappiness.

Actually, Unsummon should probably a promotion you inflict on enemies in addition to getting rid of summons. After all, most of the time your enemy summons and attacks on their turn, so you'd never have the chance to use the spell.

And I'm curious: have you integrated the new mana spheres into the Tower of Mastery victory?

nice, I'm sure Magistermod new version will be another thread chokefull of great ideas

Wait a minute, that Summon Rift is way too powerful! You could destroy an entire civ with it! Letting your troops appear anywhere every turn is game-breaking.

MagisterCultuum said:

By "soon," I mean that I have uploaded an attachment (in the .7z format, as a .zip archive was just above the forum's size limit on uploads and I don't want to figure out how to make an installer), and may be only a couple minutes away from submitting a new thread from which you can access it.

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Wow; that's one of the soonest "soons" I've ever seen!

MagisterCultuum said:

Mages like Dain should fear Dagda's Runewyns if they dare to threaten someone with force mana. Note that these angels are entirely canonical, and can be found in the bestiary.

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MagisterCultuum said:

You'd actually need more than 4 dimensional mana; there are more sources of mana in my version so I raised the requirements for free promotions.

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I just meant so that the mage who summoned that spectre would get a rather pleasant 80 xp.

I like most features cited here
However the forceIII summon seems powerful.
I would attack archmages before adepts.. and steal all their mana and chanelling.. thus effectively killing all interest for said archmage : now kill the archmage yourself as it can't do anything. (it is a bit strong for a summon unit, especially for a suicide capability (something that works even if you attack with 1%chance of victory)


did I miss something ?

In that cas, killing all xp would be more "balanced" less damaging (as you can stil use the unit) but still a damage as you have to gain 90xp before the archmage can upgrade to a new sphere.

If you lose only 1mana spell promo per attack, that would be better : 1 lost promo can be a big slap in the face but is still manageable.

Or at least the ability to remove mana/chanelling (which might be more damaging than losing mana sphere), is linked to the initial %chance of victory... so a suicide attack has few chances of beridding the defender of all his spells.

I agree with most of what Calavente said, but I think that summon is just too powerful.

Wait, what if it removed magic promotions (specific spells) in the same way mounted units do flanking damage to siege units? I think that work best.

But what about that Summoned Rift? If you can transport your army to the heart of your enemies' civ, they would be decimated. For example, what if the Sheaim used it to pop Abashi right outside your capital city? Unless you have an army just sitting there inside your boarders, you're toast.

Maybe it would be better as a nuke-like unit, ripping apart space-time and destroying stuff.

Actually, is there space-time in a fantasy world?